


The Ziegler Ghost : A Short Essay on the Forgiveness of My Father

by thecolourclear (afinch)



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Forgiveness, Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-07
Updated: 2007-01-07
Packaged: 2018-11-07 13:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/thecolourclear
Summary: These are the words of a Mr. Ziegler and how he found his father's forgiveness in his love for someone else, and how he is constantly reminded of that forgiveness through his own children





	The Ziegler Ghost : A Short Essay on the Forgiveness of My Father

It can be said that in watching my father play with his grandchildren he comes alive for the first time that day, that month, that year. It can be said that they fill him with a joy he has lost for so long, the only way to gain shards of it back is through the innocence of children.

Children are peculiarly innocent; they do not see the history that lies within families, the bonds that have lain broken for far too long. They will innocently tug on their grandfather's arm and beg him to stay for just five more minutes. If he leaves early, they forgive him instantly the next time they see him. 

I wish the same could be said of me and the forgiveness of my father, but I am no longer a child. While children are precocious and innocent, they do hold the gravest of sins against them in their hearts for a very long time. My father was never around. My father spent my childhood in jail. He did not see me take my first step, utter my first word, go to kindergarten, or learn to ride a bike. He was there in the shadows of everything; my mother made sure of it. She would still threaten to 'tell your father' if any one of us acted out of line or received a poor grade. She would speak often of her trips to see him, of how he only talked of his love for much, how much he missed all of us dearly. I always wondered how you could miss someone you never knew – I didn't miss him. 

Having a father I deeply missed, but this specific father I had no feelings for; I could not love a man who gave me no reason to love him. Children are not that innocent. While they crave love, they also learn not to blindly give it. Love is hard to give to a ghost, someone that is not even a memory, someone of whose tales make him seem a king.

Growing up, I dreaded Parent's Day at school; all the boys brought their fathers, all the girls their mothers. It was how it was. My sisters never had to suffer the indignity of bringing the 'wrong' parent to the Parent's Day Lunch. Joseph Keibler brought his mother only because his father was dead. My father wasn't dead, but he wasn't exactly living either. He was just … there. Existing.

I was twelve when he was released from prison, and by that time, I was too old to care about bonding with him. By then, my heart had hardened and I refused to let him hug me. I publicly disgraced him at my Bar Mitzvah. Giving the Valedictory address at my high school, I failed to mention him; my mother on the other hand, I praised for a good three minutes of the speech.

At my college graduation, things were a bit different. I was in love and the second I had that diploma, I was proposing. I pulled her father aside while she and her mother were taking pictures and asked his permission then. He asked me to hold off until dinner, until after he had spoken with my father. What could I do but wait? And so I waited, the small ring slowly increasing in weight in my pocket until I had decided not to do it after all. 

Feeling more than a bit ashamed, I decided to duck out of the party early. I ran into my father on the way out. To tell now of what he and I shared all those years ago would be a dishonour to my father; it stayed then, and it shall stay now, forever between us. As a result of that conversation, I walked back into the party and proposed. 

At the very moment she said yes, I forgave my father.

Things did not change overnight, there are times when it feels as though things have not changed at all; he and I never speak of my childhood. When my two little boys and two little girls ask for stories of me from when I was their age, he only shakes his head and grows serious and they don't bring it up for a few more days, weeks, months. I never speak of my childhood without a father; it is locked up in the attic, hidden among the photographs like a ghost. Someday they will know, they will seek the truth to a part of their lives that does not truly belong to them and yet, belongs to all of us who carry the Ziegler name.


End file.
